Treatment of young offenders
is shameful, says Labour's justice expert

By Ned Temko and Jamie Doward
20th August 2006

An expert involved in Tony
Blair's plans to transform the youth justice system has branded the
policy a shameful failure. Instead of tackling the causes of youth crime,
it was 'demonising' and 'criminalising' vulnerable young people.

The damning verdict by Rob
Allen, who has been a member of the Youth Justice Board (YJB) since
it was set up a year after Blair's 1997 election victory, comes in a
report seen by The Observer to be published next month. Allen, who heads
the International Centre for Prison Studies at King's College, London,
is stepping down after his maximum of two four-year terms on the board.

His call for an overhaul
of the system follows the board's announcement last week that a shortage
of places for children in Britain's overcrowded prisons meant young
people would increasingly have to share cells, a move described as 'dangerous'
by Frances Crook, head of the Howard League for Penal Reform.

'The recent inquiry into
the murder of Zahid Mubarek by his cellmate recommended the ending of
enforced cell-sharing,' she said. 'The vast majority of children in
prison are vulnerable and damaged, and we fear this is a dangerous practice.'

To ease the crisis among
institutions holding teenage offenders, 279 cells have already been
converted for sharing. Rod Morgan, chair of the YJB, said: 'The pressures
continue to increase. We are at around 97 per cent capacity and haven't
got much room for manoeuvre. We've made it plain to all concerned that
we are concerned.'

Allen praises programmes
'working with children at risk of being drawn into crime' and 'addressing
the personal, social and educational deficits which underlie so much
offending', but adds: 'There are other elements which are deeply disappointing:
the increasing criminalisation of young people involved in minor delinquency,
and the stubbornly high use of custodial remands and sentences.

'And there are some developments
of which we really should be ashamed, in particular aspects of the way
we lock up children, the demonisation of young people involved in anti-social
behaviour and the coarsening of the political and public debate about
how to deal with young people in trouble.'

He calls for a 'fundamental
shift' in approach, paying more than 'lip service' to crime prevention
as a priority, moving away from a growing tendency to treat 'misbehaviour
by young people as a crime to be punished rather than a problem to be
solved' and rethinking justice policies that 'make matters worse' for
the 'most damaged children who present the greatest needs and the highest
risks'.

His report says that while
a minority of young people are 'dangerous offenders' who should be dealt
with by the prison authorities, the youth justice portfolio should be
taken away from the Home Office and run by the Department for Education.

He points to research showing
that many children and young people who end up in custody have special
educational needs, suffer from autism, or have social or behavioural
difficulties, and in many cases have been excluded from school. 'Unless
basic mainstream services like education and health can respond to the
needs of young offenders and children at risk, youth justice ends up
picking up the pieces, providing a parallel but second-rate service,'
according to the report by King's Centre for Crime and Justice Studies.

Allen said yesterday that
unless such a fundamental change was put in place, he feared more children
and young people would end up in a criminal justice system which was
likely to increase, rather than prevent, offending.

The policy lead, he said,
was increasingly set by 'politically driven crackdowns' on problems
such as street crime and anti-social behaviour encouraged by Downing
Street and the Home Office. 'Yes, there are high-risk young offenders,
but in many other cases the responses needed involve education, health
and child protection. Kids fight, for instance, but the question is
whether that is a criminal problem that needs punishment or a social
problem to be resolved.'